Legal Issues

Internet marketing is a business like any other and wherever you are located will be regulated in some way by your government.

It is your responsibility to comply with regulations. While it is quick and useful to emulate existing websites and practices it is always worth, and is your responsibility, to ensure that you comply with the law.

In the UK the Companies Act applies to all your websites and electronic communications. There is relevant advice on direct marketing at the Committees on Advertising Practice website at:

www.cap.org.uk

In the UK then Website-Law.co.uk provides comprehensive advice and downloadable templates which seem to average about £20 a piece.

There is an important issue about testimonials and endorsements coming up under US law whereby those who give testimonials or endorsements must make clear their relationship with the product vendor.  You can read more about it on the FTC site about Endorsements and Testimonials.

You will need all those legal pages you see at the bottom of most web sites (well, all the bona fide ones, at least) and if you are collecting information then you absolutely must have a good Privacy policy.  In fact if you use Google Analytics on your website(s) – which is recommended –

  1. you are required by their Terms Of Service (http://www.google.com/intl/en_uk/analytics/tos.html – section 8) to have a Privacy Policy which states that you use cookies on your website. They give suggested wording in section 8.1
  2. If you take any form of payment on your website, EU regulations state that you must have Terms and Conditions (T’s & C’s) on your website, which will protect both you and your customers.

It’s NOT a good idea to just copy the T’s & C’s, or a Privacy Policy from another website & add your business name – you could be leaving yourself wide open to legal problems if you miss out relevant information.

Here’s a free tool that will do some of the work for you: Free Disclaimer Generator

And Bob Silber provides lots of good information at www.internetmarketinglawproducts.com

A similar service is provided by InternetLawCompliance.com which is an out and out marketing site.

But, at the end of they day, you should take professional legal advice about these to fit them to your particular business.